Drug Dominated Psychiatry in N. Ireland

antrim | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Friday April 15, 2005 13:46

by sean fleming

shaunpleamonn at hotmail dot com

The present Review of Mental Health (N.Ireland) being undertaken by psychiatric and mental health professionals is fundamentally flawed and in truth attacks the human rights of those it regards as ‘mentally ill’..Drug company domination can be seen in research carried out at the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Queen’s University, Belfast.

tardive dyskinesia

The present Review of Mental Health (N.Ireland) being undertaken by psychiatric and mental health professionals is fundamentally flawed and in truth attacks the human rights of those it regards as ‘mentally ill’. This review forms part of a wider review into the reform of mental health legislation in the UK which saw the UK government produce a draft Bill In September 2004.This new Bill will replace The Mental Health Act 1983. The Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 as a part of this Act presently governs the treatment of people with ‘mental health’ problems in Northern Ireland.

Recently the Chairperson of the Review of Mental Health (December 2004) wrote to the Northern Ireland Office Minister for Finance calling for more funding to implement the plans of a committee set up under the Review. What is interesting is that in his letter the Chairperson recognises the fact that in the north of Ireland much severe mental distress ‘derives both from the chaos of the last 35 years as well as powerful socio-economic factors of poverty and deprivation’.

Yet if one examines the general thrust and content of this letter and the committee’s calls for funding it is clear that increased funding is aimed towards providing more mental health professionals and physical ‘treatments’ which can only serve to perpetuate the already failed biomedical or biological approach to ‘mental illness’. The truth is that the pervasive understanding within the mental health field is that ‘mental illness’ is essentially biological in origin. Biological psychiatry is quite simply wrong given that the causes of this mental and emotional suffering are societal or environmental in origin. It is these factors which can bring about mental suffering that they (the psychiatric profession) label as mental disease or illness. We therefore need approaches that address this reality by providing a network of genuine caring and supportive services. Disabling drug treatments and biological theories of mental illness (‘mental illnesses are the result of brain chemical imbalances or genetic defects’) deflect attention way from this reality and in fact illustrate how psychiatry continues to act as a form of social control.

In preventing recognition of how society and the State perpetrate and perpetuate severe mental distress (poverty, unemployment, inequality, injustice and inter-personal conflicts, etc) the aim is to objectify the patient telling him/her that the problem is their ‘illness’ or their ‘faulty’ brain chemistry or ‘neurochemical defect’.
This review and its members are simply acting out their role as agents of the State in producing a review that will not benefit psychiatric patients in any positive way at all. It engages in the demeaning objectification and labelling of those suffering severe mental distress. It is an exercise in legitimising a pseudo medical practice and its mental ‘health’ professionals. The reality is that this review supports the internment of the ‘mentally ill’ in psychiatric institutions or prisons against their will. It supports the use of forced drug ‘treatment’ on people it views as lacking ‘capacity’ or ‘insight’ into their ‘illness’ (Illnesses that can’t be proven to exist through any physical or objective medical tests!) It does not voice any opposition to the extended powers on forced ‘treatment’ in the community being considered in the draft Bill if this is believed to be in the best interests of the ‘patient’. If one reads the review one finds that nowhere in it do these mental ‘health’ professionals ever once question the extremely close relationship between psychiatry and the drug companies nor once do they question the growing controversy concerning ‘anti-depressants’ and their serious side effects (even suicide). Not once do they raise any concern about the neurological diseases caused by so- called anti-psychotic drugs. Why? Because it would be professional suicide if they did!

Consequently there is no recognition in the review of the need to have in place a service that can help patients safely withdraw from heavy psychiatric drugs which is something that psychiatric patients have always wanted. Mental ‘death’ professionals will unconscionably defend the drugs irrespective of the serious health risks to the patient. Psychiatry today is simply about dispensing brain-disabling and debilitating drugs. There is simply no emphasis at all on alternatives.

I have recently written to the manufacturers of ‘anti-psychotics’ in relation to the inadequate information and in some cases complete absence of information provided in the patient information leaflet for these drugs. I raised this with the UK drug regulatory body, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as well, who said they would follow up certain concerns with some of the companies contacted.

When I contacted the Mental Health Commission for N. Ireland, a body which claims to protect the welfare of psychiatric patients and whose work is being examined in the Review, they told me that ‘they did not adopt any stance on the use of any psychiatric drug’. Concerns about these drugs are clearly only raised by concerned individuals and not the bodies supposedly charged with responsibility for caring for the ‘mentally ill’.

It confirms for me the reality that state mental health organisations will not challenge harmful drug treatments because of the symbiotic relationship that exists between psychiatry and the psycho pharmaceutical manufacturers. Remove drugs and the psychiatric industry collapses along with the practice of coercion. Drug money is what psychiatry runs on.

Drug company domination can be seen in research carried out at the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Queen’s University, Belfast. One research project there is funded by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the American pharmaceutical company that was contacted in 2003 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the regulatory authority in the USA, concerning their ‘anti-psychotic’ drug Risperdal. They were told that the incidence of diabetes associated with the drug was not as they claimed ‘very rare’ and were warned about providing false information to healthcare professionals. Janssen deliberately concealed the truth concerning the health risks this drug presented and patients who developed diabetes as a result of this so-called treatment have filed lawsuits in the USA against the company. The terrible irony of this is that this study being undertaken by Queen’s is entitled ‘Prevalence of Diabetes in Patients In a N.Ireland population of people with Schizophrenia’. Implicit within this is the contempt in which psychiatric patients are being viewed. These are the people whom Queen’s are taking drug money from!

Let’s take another drug company, Bristol Myers Squibb, the makers of the ‘anti-psychotic’ Abilify. They too refuse to mention in the patient information leaflet that it can cause diabetes. It is accepted as medical fact that all these ‘anti-psychotics’ do present a risk of diabetes yet this company refuses to give any indication of the risk. I contacted the MHRA about this and they decided to raise the matter with the EMEA (European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products) from whom the drug is authorized. They will be asking for changes to be made in relation to the patient information leaflet. This Queen’s study funded by Bristol Myers Squibb is entitled ‘A Comparison of the Effects of Abilify and other Anti- psychotics on Weight Gain’. Nearly all anti-psychotics are notorious for massive weight gain and disfigurement.

Another study by Queen’s entitled ‘The Genetic Epidemiology of Tardive Dyskinesia in N.Ireland’ is quite astounding in its hypocrisy. The psychiatric profession and the drug companies admit that their drugs can and do cause this neurological disease called tardive dyskinesia (TD) which is characterised by involuntary muscular movements of the mouth, face, neck, arms or indeed any part of the body. If these drugs were only used for very short periods during extreme mental distress there would be little or no risk of TD and consequently no need for such ‘studies’. It is precisely because psychiatrists insist on prescribing them long term that many patients develop TD and other neurological diseases (if psychiatrists weren’t dispensing psychiatric drugs, what else, of course, would they be doing?). It is quite simply a disgrace that this profession gets funding and sponsorship to investigate diseases which they themselves are guilty of causing. This ‘study’ is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA which takes a very biological view of mental illness ascribing as they do secondary or no importance at all to the real societal and environmental causes of severe mental distress.

Queen’s claims to be involved in studying ‘genetic risk factors for psychiatric diseases’ and the ‘neurotransmitter pathology of schizophrenia’. This is simply delusional stuff. No genetic cause has ever been established for even one of the so –called mental illnesses. All this rests on the theory that mental illnesses are brain illnesses, a theory which they present as if it were fact! If they were real brain illnesses they would become part of the medical specialty of neurology and not psychiatry. Psychiatry on the other hand investigates non-existent illnesses.

I am absolutely convinced that a genetic cause or genetic defect for ‘schizophrenia’ will never be found because schizophrenia, I believe, as a brain illness simply does not exist. This department at Queens pursues this fruitless quest because it presents an illusion of medical science and that psychiatry is on a par with the rest of medicine. Instead of curing or treating disease they excel in causing disease which is after all psychiatry’s specialty.

The sad truth is that no psychiatric patient in N.Ireland can take anything positive out of this Review or from the present research in this area funded by drug companies. Psychiatry continues to label people mentally ill when in fact there is no evidence that they are suffering from brain pathology. They cannot be said to be suffering from biological diseases or diseases of the brain. The term needs to be replaced by the correct term severe mental/emotional distress. The psychiatrically labelled face a future of more harmful drugs and the much feared depot injections including increased stigmatisation.

The State though will continue to support psychiatry and the mental health industry. Its purpose as social control masked as medical practice will continue to harm and ruin lives and will continue in failing to address the real causes of severe mental distress.

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Comments (20 of 20)

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Excellent Article!

by Sean Crudden - impero

Fri Apr 15, 2005 20:29

sean at impero dot iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

042 93 71310

Your article is a comprehensive and persuasive critique of modern psychiatry which, at base, is merely a matter of administering the "needle" and the "pill." I'm surprised that the professionals working in the field cannot allow themselves to consider how thin and threadbare their methodology is surrounded as they are by the wreckage of the last half century of drug dominated practice.

drug dominated psychiatry in n.ireland

by sean

Fri Apr 15, 2005 20:49

Thanks, Sean.

Quotation from Pope John Paul II

Sat Apr 16, 2005 13:59

"Whoever suffers from mental illness always bears God’s image and likeness in himself, as does every human being. In addition, he always has the inalienable right not only to be considered as an image of God and therefore as a person, but also to be treated as such.

"It is everyone’s duty to make an active response; our actions must show that mental illness does not create insurmountable distances, nor prevent relations of true Christian charity with those who are its victims. Indeed it should inspire a particularly attentive attitude."

The above quotation from a talk given by the late Pope John Paul II (R.I.P.) in 1997 shows - understood from the point of view of a mental patient - that, allowing for the "Pope-speak" aspect, the Pope had an authentic and positive understanding of the plight of mentally ill people.

christianity and psychiatry

Sat Apr 16, 2005 17:53

Yes, I would agree. He was someone who showed a genuine Christian witness, a great person.

I believe that Christians have a duty to oppose the psychiatric system.

Being part of a system which labels, demeans, objectifies, dehumanises and often irreversibly harms people with brain damaging 'treatments' is incompatible with genuine Christian witness.

I believe Christ would have condemned psychiatry.

agree

by anonymouues - anonymous

Sun Apr 17, 2005 02:24

I was in a locked ward many years ago, and I saw the most awful treatment meeted out to others.
The night staff for instance, talked so loudly, it could be perfectly heard what they were saying.
When I inforned them of the volume they were broadcasting at, and could they please lower it, I was told to go back to bed and not to cause trouble.
I was one patient being assaulted by a member of day staff. One belt in the stomach.
On another occasion, this same man was very aggitated over something, he was trying to get a member of staff to just sit down and listen to him.
After what must have been an hour, one staff member was heard by me to say "Ah here, I'f had enough of this, come in here".
The two retreated into a treatment room, they emerged two minutes or so later.
The man was out of his head on stuff they had given him to shut him up.
They day staff were farily ok except for one individua who spoke to patients as if they were prisoners.
The night staff was a different story.
At 8p.m. or so when the medication was distributed, one nurse call ********* used to go round gently tapping on all the doors of the rooms sayin "medication time. . . . . . .medication time".
Every one followed him to the dispensing room, and he lined everyone including myself in single file outside the room to be given our nightly 'whatever'.
It was like filing through a checkout in Tesco, actually it was on different.
I used to hate that man, and that time of night.
I felt so humiliated, and even though I was there only once in 1993 for a period of three to four weeks, I still feel intense anger to this day when I think of it.
THEY WERE NOT ALL BAD, NOT BY ANY MEANS, but the ones that were, outweighed any memories of the good ones.
This is an issue that needs to be talked about more.
Are there others out there that have experienced either directly or a family member being treated like an accused?
Add your comments.................please

Sun Apr 17, 2005 02:27

THE SENTNCE BEGINNNING ...........I was one patient, SHOULD READ "I SAW ONE PATIENT"

psychiatric assault

Sun Apr 17, 2005 13:40

Hi anonymouues - anonymous,
I was interested to read your posting.

I believe that actual physically violent abuse and assault in psychiatric hospitals/units is quite common. If it is not actually physical it is psychological.

The drugs though are the real physical assault yet this is masqueraded as treatment.

A friend of mine is at present taking legal action against a psychiatrist who subjected him to demeaning and belittling comments when in a psychiatric unit.

He is off the drugs now but suffered serious ill effects from them from which though he is recovering.

His legal action is also in relation to the fact that his psychiatrist lied to him about the real effects of the drugs he was on by saying, for instance, that they didn't cause weight gain.

I myself have seen psychiatric patients psychologically and physically abused. Sadly, the word of the psychiatric patient living in a psychaitric unit/housing scheme tends to be dismissed because they are seen to have an 'illness' with 'symptoms' of paranoia, etc.

They may also have difficulty articulating their grievance because they are so debilitated by the drugs.

I don't understand why you make the link to Aware. Aware supports the disease model of depression , believing it is a brain disorder ,and is strongly pro-drug company.

The effect of their approach is that they often infantilise and stigmatise people by saying they have a brain illness and that they must listen to the professionals and take their 'medication' .

We know that the drug companies have lied to us about the real effects of their drugs and groups like Aware perpetuate those lies.

Psychiatry bad treatment trust

by Paul Burke - None

Tue Mar 14, 2006 16:54

8 Campbell Walk , Lurgan , Co Armagh , BT67 9HD

02838827862

Following recent media articles in March / April 2005 I too am always under mental health pychiatry care very unhappy how they regulate you, treat you, lack of councelling support do very little staff give you in my local Psychiatric Unit Hospital in Co Armagh.
I agree to all points made by former patients Sean & other about the night staff making too much noise in glass watchful office laughing having a good time same with staff half the day time with regular long break sections not coming to speak to patients in a top floor one long hall very little valcelties for patients to do bored stiff. They pull open curtains away at 7.00 a.m when they begin shift too early when under going psychologically problems we diserve a good sleep in, also shout medication time. It feels like a dealth trap I agree with someone how dangerous or useless the pharmacial drugs are to put patients on long term I have had to cope poorly with staff not worried of the affects it is doing to other patients I have to share beds with etc.. One man about 68 walks in toilets every ten minutes flushes chain walks out half times blockes it with toilet roll causing floods even anger to other patients he tickles their feet trying to sleep closes windows for air & Curtains by 6.p.m on patients plus switches off lights and T.V Switches when you walk out, these Pscyhatric Nurse Assisants just let him go on and on doing it alos he gets £10 of 50P's for phone every 10 minuts. Also extra toilets near canteen which food is not cooked in comes form main canteen are closed due to this man dinners take 15 minutes comming to strarving distressed patients everyday. His or my Doctor Consultant won't take time to solve his problem peace for others. Queens University need to study more to encourgae health boards to open more fair more choice in single room foyers supported housing choices in N. Ireland & UK LESS PSYCHAITIC UNIT lock up as I feel it does more harm than good to your general health so over filled on harmal anti psychic drugs that is all Doctor ? Keeps doing increase , increase to I die feel so humilated the way he leaves me to the last on Reveiw day keeping me aprt from mey family to housing options are found in this dirty hospital poor meals you get could,nt fill a dog or 10. BIG POINT of the DAY .... Also worth saying in this psychiatic ward the Nurse managent half the time give me the Wrong medication totally stupit wrong mistake nurses should make it was actually the Consultant fault one tryied to say on reveiw day he increased the tablets nurses left same name of drug company Tegertol but not Tegertol Retard I 've been on for yrs having to be mixed with anti-pschic drugs which other night I had to go to BED without any SUPPILE of anti -pschic drugs left in the trolley too late to go and get any both wards must be over -precribing this drug Sulpride Sulpitil by this anti socialising Doctor who Hospitialises some patients frequently and wrongly for very little upset depression levels which is Northern Irelands biggest diease I am always looking to live away some where esle to improve my condition wellbeing to come off these drugs. I am not even allowed out for air or drinks increase I run away the hospital should serve soft drinks chocolate in their cup of tea rounds 3 times a day I'm really suffering in the over heated hospitail glad to say one room stays cool with windows open 24 hours a day but too little to play or do with no help foor more than 5 minutes even for 3 full days nurses don't ask you how are you anti social anti - psychotic indeed mental health commission & bbc Panarama shold come to witness these poor services at Craigavon Psychratric area Hospitail over filled with cars and staff 10 a day 4 a night but not enough support councelling do they give to ALL some are better as former reprot reader said. N.H.S. is becoming worse instead of better too little or no fundiing comes often eough to mental health services in Northern Ireland. Yours Truly

Psychiatric harm

by Sean

Tue Mar 28, 2006 17:24

Thanks Paul for highlighting the harm psychiatry and the mental health system causes.

I should point out that I am not a former patient. I am a refuser of 'mental health' services as I believe psychiatry is based on fraud and that it pathologises problems in life.

Coercive Psychiatry is a human rights abuser as I don't have the right as a human being to refuse psychiatric 'treatment' (tardive dyskinesia causing drugs) and ECT(causing irreversible brain damage and memory loss) if 2 shrinks can agree that I am 'mentally ill' without providing objective medical evidence (brain scans , blood tests) of pathology.

I can be as anyone else can be detained against their will and drugged against their will.

Psychiatry is without any doubt a pseudoscience and the vast bulk of the psychiatric profession are jailers and poisioners.

Another view.

by Psychiatrist

Wed Jun 21, 2006 14:52

I would obviously take issue with a lot of what is said in this webpost, I think it is all to easy to pick holes in some of the theories that underly current psychiatric practice. However for all its downsides psychiatry and neuroscience is trying to understand the problems people with illnesses have in a scientific framework. That has limitations but I think it is important that there are people, good people, working within this framework to try and understand and improve the life of people with mental illness. Lot of the information present in the report is as biased as some of the drug companies in the other direction, two wrongs don't make a right.

psychiatric drugs cause disease

Wed Jun 21, 2006 16:35

I was interested to read the comment posted by psychiatrist. He claims that the article is as biased as some of the information provided by the pharmaceuticals. The Queen's Neuroscience and Psychiatry department receives money from the manufacturers of atypical neuroleptics which have caused tardive dyskinesia, akathesia and diabetes, not to mention other illnesses, thyroid, liver , etc. Read the patient info leaflets with these drugs. You won't believe the adverse effects!!

There are no medical tests which can prove the existence of 'schizophrenia' or any other 'mental illness' .These people have serious problems in their lives and they require social support and care not these drugs with their awful effects. The prescribing psychiatrist justifies their use because it keeps him/her in a job - never mind how the poor unfortunates suffer with weight gain, involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, legs( evidence of the damage caused to their central nervous system) Try taking the drugs yourself psychiatrist - experience the effects for yourself and see how you like it. Tardive dyskinesia is a disease not a side effect as you claim ! That is one of the biggest lies you perpetuate and it is a lie! That makes you a liar! A so-called schizoprenic has no brain pathology before he takes your drugs - no consistent biological markers proving diseasse- no lesion- has been found in their brains established through brain scanning technology , but yeah a few years later, there is disease alright. How do you justify it? I could understand it if these chemical mind and emotion numbing drugs were prescribed for a few weeks to get someone through a period of extreme mental distress but years on end no way. It's an absolute disgrace and you are a fraud for justifying it! Try reading the pharmacological studies written by psychiatrist Peter Breggin and you might get some idea as to the real harm and the fraud which operates behind the drug companies and the psychiatric propaganda which justifies their prescription and which you support despite your attempt to present yourself as reasonable.Deep down you must know that these drugs are not the answer. There is nothing reasonable about what you and psychaitrists like you are doing in tems of ruined or diminished lives, lives lived out in the belief that they have a brain illness which requires life long neuroleptic drug taking. One other psychiatrist on this site responded to another article I wrote' Psychaitric Abuse in Ireland' but was unable to support her argument scientifically and because she knows that the truth is out - these drugs cause disease, but sure a very nice salary, status , you don't want to throw that away and speak the truth. Instead you live out a delusion that you are helping people, perpetuating a fraud. I challenge you to prove to me that these criticisms of psychiatry are not legitimate. These drugs do not help redress any chemical imbalance .That is false. I could challenge every one of psychiatry's falsehoods and I have seen the wreakage of human lives caused by your drugs to back up what I'm saying. So if you can enlighten myself and others go ahead!!!

drug dominated psychistary in northern ireland

by concerned

Wed Jun 21, 2006 17:21

As the observer of a patient being treated with depot injections I am very concerned about the serious condidition they have acquired through the use of neuroleptic drugs. Tardive diskinesia and the serious PERNAMENT muscle weakness which this has caused.
What rights does the patient have to get redress for this
Who is fighting on their behalf
Why were they prescribed these drugs for years without any review
Why has this all not been highlighted in the national and local press
Who is being protected and why
Why are governments keeping silent
Is ther a class action being taken.
Why are GPs referring patients into a system causing them pernament disability

Toxic Psychiatry

Wed Jun 21, 2006 17:58

'Patients' have no rights ultimately where psychiatry is concerned. They can be detained against their will even when they have committed no crime. They can be drugged against their will by psychiatrists and given ECT against their will. 'All for their own good of course'.

Who is fighting on their behalf? No one! Not even the representatives of mental health user organisations. They don't challenge it as well and those who articulate concerns are often offered sweeteners and they take them. The press won't highlight it because journalists can't see through the mystification and the bullshit that psychiatry and the drug companies perpetuate. Journalism doesn't exit today where psychiatry is concerned . Most of them are lackeys and voice establishment orthodox views. They are shallow and vacuous in the way they analyse psychiatry. Even Indymedia refused to carry my artice ' Psychiatric Abuse in Ireland' as a feature no doubt for the best of reasons but the reality is most people have no insight into the harm psychiatry causes and will not take the trouble to find out or would rather be in denial. Governments keep silent because psychiatry is and has always been about social control and about maintaining societal norms of thinking and behaviour. Take homosexuality. Psychiatrists said that it was a mental illness up until 1972. Gay people were lobotimised and given ECT and heavy neuroleptic drugs to ' cure ' them. If you tell people this they think you're making it up and that it's 'anti-psychiatry' propaganda.

GP's are also the problem.They routinely prescribe 'anti-depressants' - drugs which can cause suicide. Check out Seroxat (Glaxo SmithKline). They are also responsible for the terrible addiction that can result from the use of tranquilliser drugs like vallium.

On depot injections

Wed Jun 21, 2006 18:23

I should also say that depots are being favoured by shrinks today because it is one way of ensuring that 'patients' remain on their drugs. If someone is taking a neuroleptic( word neuroleptic means nevre seizing) in tablet form they can if they wish slowly reduce the dosage to cope with the effects of drug withdrawal ( people often confuse these effects with the 'illness' returning). with the depot you can't as it is administered by a 'nurse'. Unless you can buy or get the same drug in tablet form it means goin' cold turkey which can be life threatening esp. if someone has been on neuroleptics for years. The shrink won't let you come off the neuroleptic bec. s/he will say it helps redress the chemical imbalance in your brain which is the cause of your 'illness'. With the new mental health laws coming into effect in the UK if a 'patient' is not being a good boy or girl they could be lifted by the police and brough into a psychiatric unit to be forcibly 'treated'. Their protestations about tardive dyskinesia and the life diminishing and awful effects of the drugs will not be listened to. After all they are 'mentally ill' and a good psychiatric 'patient' in society's eyes is the one who takes their 'medication'.

Feedback

by Psychiatrsit

Wed Jun 21, 2006 20:36

Thank you for reading my comment and taking the time to reply, I know that we may not always agree but at least if we can enter some type of dialogue then I think things will move forward. the important thing is that science is essentially about disproving theories, with the progress we have had over the last number of years we now have better medications and through imaging and genetics a more full understanding of the biological processed that underlie illnesses. none of these approaches is perfect but slowly things are getting better. we will of cousre look back at some of the things we do now and do things differently, the best thing that can happen to a scientist is for his theory to be proven wrong then he can formulate a better one. that is the way that progress is made. those who believe absolutely that they are right are condemned to stand still. we must learn from experience.

Psychiatric drugs cause disease

Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:55

.

First of all dialogue is not possible in psychiatry. If someone within the psychiatric profession disputes the biomedical model of mental illness they are often marginalised and may even lose their job. Look at the experience of Duncan Double, who helped establish the Critical Psychiatry Network.'Medications' are not better as you say .risperadil, abilify, olanzapine, the new atypical neuroleptics still cause high rates of tardive dyskinesia and in fact carry a higher risk of diabetes than the typicals. I use to volunteer in the National Schizophrenia Fellowship in Belfast (now Rethink) and many of the 'sufferers' there had tardive dyskinesia. I know people today who have been on the atypicals less than a couple of years and have put on a great deal of weight and have beome debilitated by the drugs which they are told they must keep taking.This is simply criminal and I'm sorry but what you are doing is wrong.The biomedical model is almost sacrosanct today. You are right when you have that science advances through challenging theories but anyone who expresses skepticism about the brain chemical imbalance theory or who says these drugs do not help redress an imbalance is dismissed. The first duty of a doctor is not to do harm yet psychiatrists frequently inflict harm through tardive dyskinesia causing drugs. The dyskinesia and akathesia is after all evidence of neurological damage and with all the modern scientific adavnces in brain scanning technology and blood chemiical analysis you know that no brain lesion or brain pathology in the brains of so called schizophrenics has ever been found.Period. These drugs are on the market because they are profitable.The brain pathology that has been found is as a result of the drugs yet you justify and remain part of something that is and has always been intrinsically evil. It would be better if those who suffer severe mental distress were given social care and support and you guys with your drugs stayed out of it.

Discussion of this over on Medialens Message Board

by MC

Thu Jun 22, 2006 16:58

Link to discussion of media collusion/failure to hold pharmas to account:

http://www.medialens.org/board/

You'll have to scroll down the board to reach it - dont seem to be able to make a link to the specific thread.

Drug induced psychiatry in Northern Ireland

Mon Jun 26, 2006 18:24

Thank you Sean for your time in replying

Is there any possibility of a special patients support group for tardive diskinesia caused by the neuroleptic drugs.

Is there any treatment centre to help those on depot injections get of them

Again is there any way that these these patients can get redress for this suffering from these pharmacaeutical companies or physicians .

check out writings of dr david healy

by hedgehog

Tue Jun 27, 2006 01:30

on this topic, people may find the opinions of dr david healy interesting. He is an expert in the field and has been an outspoken critic of the unhealthy relationship between the pharmaceutical companies and the mental health profession

here is a starting point
http://www.deep-trance.com/treatment/dr-david-healy.html

Psychiatric fraud

Wed Jun 28, 2006 11:33

Hi Concerned,

a patients support group for TD is very good idea. I don't know of any in N.Ireland or in the south or across the water for that matter.There are, to the best of my knowledge and as someone who has been looking into this for years , no treatment centres .Redress against big pharma or even psychiatrists is a monumental task though Peter Breggin in the US has been successful in lawsuits as has the Citizens Commission on Human Rights who have done much good work in exposing psychiatric fraud.You along with your friend could try to raise these concerns about TD and try to switch to a tablet neuroleptic. Sadly though in the vast bulk of cases despite the clear evidence of serious physical and mental harm caused by these drugs psychiatrists will not agree to help someone come off these drugs. Consequently many lives are ruined. Psychiatric survivors and those harmed by psychiatry need to organise and and start resisting psychiatric oppression. Psychiatry has got away with its abuse and fraud for far too long.

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Drug Dominated Psychiatry in N. Ireland

Comments (20 of 20)